http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20120412-339298.html
By Rennie Whang
The New Paper
Saturday, Apr 14, 2012
Two months into the maid's stay, the cracks began to appear. Her four-year-old daughter would avoid their maid when she and her husband were at home, and ask them to take care of her instead.
One day, her daughter came up to her, and knocked her head on the wall.
Said the child: "Aunty hit my head."
But she merely warned the Myanmar maid, Su Su Hlaing, 31, saying it should be the last time.
(We are not naming the parents or their daughter as the girl is a minor.) At the time, the maid also started giving monosyllabic replies whenever she or her husband called home. Still, they thought little of the signs.
Her work was adequate. In front of the couple, the maid would be caring towards the child, and even play with her. But two months later, the daughter began to cry whenever her mother was about to leave for work in the morning.
"She would say, 'mummy take me.' My husband and I thought it was just that she wanted me, which was normal. But I was a little confused," the girl's mother told The New Paper on Tuesday evening.
So the couple bought a CCTV camera and installed it in their flat's living room. What the spy camera caught over eight hours from Feb 9 to 10 shocked them.
The maid was seen slapping the girl on the head. She was also caught hitting her on her right arm and pulling her hair. And, frustrated with trying to get the girl to eat, Hlaing went to the kitchen and took a knife with a 20-cm long blade, which she pointed at the child while advancing towards her.
The child shrank away, frightened.
Then, when Hlaing sat opposite the girl, she flung the same knife, which landed next to the girl.
Incensed, the parents reported the maid to the police on Feb 11. Said the girl's mother:
"If we caught all that over two days, what more could have happened over the last five months?"
On Tuesday, Hlaingwas sentenced to three months' jail for criminal intimidation, with an intent to cause the girl alarm.After watching the video, the mother said, she did not want Hlaing in their home.
She added: "No more maids for us, since this happened."
Hlaing is the second maid the Singaporean Permanent Resident couple has hired. Before Hlaing, a maid from Myanmar worked for them for seven months before she wanted to go home, the girl's mother said. Hlaing started working for the couple over a weekend in September last year. The following weekday, the maid was already tasked with looking after the girl, an only child, as her parents went to work. Their next-door neighbour, who gave his name only as Mr Siah, 36, said he had even considered taking on Hlaing when his own Filipino maid left recently.
Said the sales manager in disbelief: "She seemed like a pleasant girl with a good character. She played with my five-year-old daughter."
When The New Paper visited the couple's flat on Tuesday night, the daughter was cheerfully running about. Said her mother, who chided her from time to time about climbing over furniture:
"(My daughter) is playful, not naughty. You scold her a bit when she does something wrong, she'll understand. That's what I tried to tell the maid. But she took too much liberty."
Since the event, the couple has sought to distance themselves from the maid.
They did not appear in court on Tuesday, and did not know of the sentence until our visit.
Said the girl's mother: "I can't say if three months is too long or too short. I just hope it's enough for her to learn that hitting a child is wrong - that's why we reported her in the first place."
While the couple both used to work till at least 7pm every day, the mother has, since the incident, arranged with her company to allow her to complete her projects from home.
"We don't want what happened with our maid to happen to other families. If they employ a maid, there should be somebody else around."
Lack of supervision can have its problems. TNP reported yesterday that a boy fell from his fifth-storey flat on Tuesday when his maid left the house. But not everyone is as fortunate as this girl's mother. Founder and managing director of human resources consultancy AYP Associates Ms Annie Yap said flexi-time is popular especially with working mothers who prefer to be able to manage their work, as opposed to quitting to be a full-time housewife.
Despite heavy promotion over the last few years, its occurrence is still low in firms here - at an estimated 10 to 15 per cent, Ms Yap said. And it's an arrangement more common in multinational corporations than with small and medium enterprises.
By Rennie Whang
The New Paper
Saturday, Apr 14, 2012
Two months into the maid's stay, the cracks began to appear. Her four-year-old daughter would avoid their maid when she and her husband were at home, and ask them to take care of her instead.
One day, her daughter came up to her, and knocked her head on the wall.
Said the child: "Aunty hit my head."
But she merely warned the Myanmar maid, Su Su Hlaing, 31, saying it should be the last time.
(We are not naming the parents or their daughter as the girl is a minor.) At the time, the maid also started giving monosyllabic replies whenever she or her husband called home. Still, they thought little of the signs.
Her work was adequate. In front of the couple, the maid would be caring towards the child, and even play with her. But two months later, the daughter began to cry whenever her mother was about to leave for work in the morning.
"She would say, 'mummy take me.' My husband and I thought it was just that she wanted me, which was normal. But I was a little confused," the girl's mother told The New Paper on Tuesday evening.
So the couple bought a CCTV camera and installed it in their flat's living room. What the spy camera caught over eight hours from Feb 9 to 10 shocked them.
The maid was seen slapping the girl on the head. She was also caught hitting her on her right arm and pulling her hair. And, frustrated with trying to get the girl to eat, Hlaing went to the kitchen and took a knife with a 20-cm long blade, which she pointed at the child while advancing towards her.
The child shrank away, frightened.
Then, when Hlaing sat opposite the girl, she flung the same knife, which landed next to the girl.
Incensed, the parents reported the maid to the police on Feb 11. Said the girl's mother:
"If we caught all that over two days, what more could have happened over the last five months?"
On Tuesday, Hlaingwas sentenced to three months' jail for criminal intimidation, with an intent to cause the girl alarm.After watching the video, the mother said, she did not want Hlaing in their home.
She added: "No more maids for us, since this happened."
Hlaing is the second maid the Singaporean Permanent Resident couple has hired. Before Hlaing, a maid from Myanmar worked for them for seven months before she wanted to go home, the girl's mother said. Hlaing started working for the couple over a weekend in September last year. The following weekday, the maid was already tasked with looking after the girl, an only child, as her parents went to work. Their next-door neighbour, who gave his name only as Mr Siah, 36, said he had even considered taking on Hlaing when his own Filipino maid left recently.
Said the sales manager in disbelief: "She seemed like a pleasant girl with a good character. She played with my five-year-old daughter."
When The New Paper visited the couple's flat on Tuesday night, the daughter was cheerfully running about. Said her mother, who chided her from time to time about climbing over furniture:
"(My daughter) is playful, not naughty. You scold her a bit when she does something wrong, she'll understand. That's what I tried to tell the maid. But she took too much liberty."
Since the event, the couple has sought to distance themselves from the maid.
They did not appear in court on Tuesday, and did not know of the sentence until our visit.
Said the girl's mother: "I can't say if three months is too long or too short. I just hope it's enough for her to learn that hitting a child is wrong - that's why we reported her in the first place."
While the couple both used to work till at least 7pm every day, the mother has, since the incident, arranged with her company to allow her to complete her projects from home.
"We don't want what happened with our maid to happen to other families. If they employ a maid, there should be somebody else around."
Lack of supervision can have its problems. TNP reported yesterday that a boy fell from his fifth-storey flat on Tuesday when his maid left the house. But not everyone is as fortunate as this girl's mother. Founder and managing director of human resources consultancy AYP Associates Ms Annie Yap said flexi-time is popular especially with working mothers who prefer to be able to manage their work, as opposed to quitting to be a full-time housewife.
Despite heavy promotion over the last few years, its occurrence is still low in firms here - at an estimated 10 to 15 per cent, Ms Yap said. And it's an arrangement more common in multinational corporations than with small and medium enterprises.
